Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Rodney, you wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Of those of  you who are knowable about discourse grammar, I would like
> to inquire what profile scheme you find for expository discourse.  In
> Bryan Rocine's grammar (Learning Biblical Hebrew, p.319), he proposes a
> tentative scheme:
>
> 1. Verbless clause
>      2. hyh clause
>            3. x-qatal
>                4. participle as predicate
>                    yiqtol with present time
>                    lo-yiqtol
>                     5. qatal and yiqtol in dependent clauses
>                          6. embedded discourse
>
> 1) Do you agree?
> 2) Where would you place x-yiqtol and weqatal in this scheme?  (I would
> imagine that x-yiqtol would be equal with #1 or between 1 and 2, and
> weqatal would fit with #4.)

Since we haven't talked about this stuff on-list for awhile, I would like to
back up a bit to define the genres.

Genres, in this view, are unlike the genres posited by the literary critic
or poet.  In the model I use, genres perform a simple, universal
communication task, as follows:

Historical Narrative tells a story set in the past.
Predictive Narrative predicts a story.
Hortatory Discourse directly attempts to modify behavior.
Instructional Discourse tells how to do something.
Procedural Discourse tells how something was done (repeatedly).
Expository Discourse reveals truth of any other sort.

Three parameters inherent to the communication tasks also define the
discourse genres by their presence or absence; they are: consecutivity (C),
projection (P), and agent orientation (AO),.

Consecutivity is present when the text displays a line of temporal
contingencies.  Linkage is mostly temporal rather than logical.

Projection is present when the text looks forward as prediction or wish.

Agent orientation is present when the text focuses on participants (rather
than abstractions or goals).

The genres fall out like this (+ means the feature is present, and - means
it is absent):

               parameters:       C  P  AO
genres:
Historical Narrative          +   -   +
Predictive Narrative         +   +   +
Hortatory Discourse         -   +   +
Instructional Discourse      -   +   -
Procedural Discourse       +   -   -
Expository Discourse        -   -   -

As one might imagine from the above descriptions, the two narrative genres
will be dominated by forms that move story time forward.  In contrast,
Hortatory and Instructional discourses will be dominated by modal forms.
The first five genres will use a series of mostly action verbs to form the
text.

Expository Discourse, in many ways the odd man out, will utilize most
heavily forms that are inherently stative.  Stative forms are the most
suitable for stating truth.  The stative nature of Expository's task makes
the BH verbless clause the form of choice for the mainline.  Qatals are also
inherently stative, expressing the state the subject was in at the time
being talked about, so they may also be useful for advancing the Expository
Discourse mainline.

Few X-yiqtols and even fewer weqatals will be Expository.  An X-yiqtol may
be present if it expresses a present, gnomic truth.  I have that in the
scheme as #4.  As for weqatal, I think it's a modal form, not suitable for
truth-telling.  I think you are looking at X-yiqtol and weqatal *in series*.
If in series, you are looking at one of the plus-projection genres.  Often,
a text that begins with expository ends with prediction or exhortation.
It's like saying, "this is the way it is *so* the following will happen" or
"this is the way it is, *so* do the following."  Expository discourse very
often is embedded within the other types as descriptive material.

Hoping to help,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

ph: 315.437.6744
fx: 315.437.6766